Democrats and the six year itch

posted at 2:01 pm on September 22, 2013 by Jazz Shaw

With many expert observers of American politics currently fretting over the “fracturing” of the Republican Party and its predicted negative impact on conservative prospects in the mid-terms, it’s possible that we are overlooking the erosion of the Democrats’ prospects under the stewardship of Barack Obama. At Real Clear Politics, Salena Zito looks at “the six year itch” which frequently affects the party in power during a president’s second term, general voter exhaustion with the status quo, and how it may be hitting the Democrats even harder than usual.

A president’s first term often is one for the voters. The second one often is for the president’s ego.

This is not unique to Barack Obama. It has happened to many presidents (think of George W. Bush and his largely-ignored plan to reform Social Security), and it is why opposition parties almost always gain seats in a president’s second midterm cycle.

Yet, in Obama, you have a president who chose to run his second-term campaign almost devoid of an agenda. His campaign focused almost entirely on character assassination, portraying Mitt Romney as a heartless corporate raider who didn’t care about average Americans.

Obama chose to say almost nothing about what he would do in a second term and, interestingly, chose not to brag about anything he’d done in his first term.

You get the mandates you ask for in elections. And Obama’s only mandate is that he is not Mitt Romney.

If, as Zito suggests, a president’s first term is “for the voters” then one would assume it represents the laurels they rest upon when asking for a second term. And yet Barack Obama’s accomplishments seem largely forgotten as the second term agenda stalls. Yes, you may scoff at the use of the term “accomplishments” but for the Democrats there were at least a few big ticket items. Obamacare was passed. Taxes on the wealthy (and others, under the covers) were jacked up. The Iraq war ended. (Yes, yes… I know. Bush was already ending it when he left.) And the President signed an order to close Guantanamo. (Fair enough… it’s not really closed closed, but by golly, he signed the order.)

Perhaps Obama’s second term agenda was all about cementing his legacy, but what happened? Immigration reform? Stalled and barely on life support. Gun control? A pipe dream. And what of his tough guy efforts to brand his personal mark on foreign policy and the rest of the world? The current state of the Arab Spring answers that one.

Before anyone assumes that the GOP is imploding and the Democrats are poised to regain seats in Congress during the mid-terms because of their “insane” actions, I’ll close by asking you to consider Zito’s parting shot.

In election after election since that time, Republicans have won seats or even whole legislative chambers across the country in areas they had no business winning, which led many political observers to believe the president was doomed to lose last year.

He didn’t lose. Instead, Americans who showed up to vote (and many did not) gave him a pass for a host of reasons, none of which had to do with his experience, his handling of issues or crises, or even his governing style.

That was a gut-punch for the Romney campaign – but it may turn into more of a sucker-punch for Democrats who are looking forward to the 2014 and 2016 election cycles.

Obama’s recent failings on Syria, and his ill-timed partisan speech following a mass murder not far from the White House, are not new behavioral patterns. This is who he has always been.

It just appears that his supporters have taken notice of that persona now, as they prepare for the next election cycle and realize that Democrats are much more fractured than Republicans.

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Before anyone assumes that the GOP is imploding and the Democrats are poised to regain seats in Congress during the mid-terms because of their “insane” actions, I’ll close by asking you to consider Zito’s parting shot….

Maybe so, and Democrats may have really stepped into it with Obamacare, but we can count on Republicans to save their bacon once again. What was the most significant achievement of Republicans Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon/Ford, Bush Sr. and Bush W.? They all had Democrats succeed them.

Maybe so, and Democrats may have really stepped into it with Obamacare, but we can count on Republicans to save their bacon once again. What was the most significant achievement of Republicans Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon/Ford, Bush Sr. and Bush W.? They all had Democrats succeed them.

The United States government appears to be careening toward a government shutdown, again. Congress is taking the world closer to the brink of financial uncertainty by bargaining over the debt ceiling, again. And D.C. has settled into that now-familiar mode of thinly veiled panic, in which everyone assumes that America will not go off the cliff but no one is quite sure how, again.
And who is to blame? Well, perhaps us.

The United States government appears to be careening toward a government shutdown, again. Congress is taking the world closer to the brink of financial uncertainty by bargaining over the debt ceiling, again. And D.C. has settled into that now-familiar mode of thinly veiled panic, in which everyone assumes that America will not go off the cliff but no one is quite sure how, again.

Meh, all these rules don’t apply to Democrats. Anything, be it simple pendulum swinging or arrogant/rude/disgusting/tyrannical statements, advertisements, and programs has no effect on their turnout. That’s all trumped by a propagandist media and voter fraud.

Rs are the only group capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of defeat.

nobar on September 22, 2013 at 2:40 PM

By the same token, the Democrats are likely to pull out a win because they are one of the few groups in history who combine an electoral voting bloc with an almost unbelievable level of blind, unthinking obedience with a leadership who define the “enemy” as anyone in their own country who does not worship them. Everyone else outside of same who want to kill us all they define as our victims getting “payback”.

The fact that those “victims” want them dead too never seems to register on their enlightened consciousness.

We are witnessing the most cynical of all calculations of both parties playing out in the senator Cruz filibuster of the House CR that defunds Obamacare.

Let me make it crystal clear that I want Obamacare repealed. It is not only bad legislation and a looming economic disaster for this nation, it will also result in the needless and untimely death and suffering of many Americans. There is a REASON that the congress has exempted itself from Obamacare.

I’m also completely opposed to any AMNESTY for illegal aliens. The existing laws should be fully and vigorously enforced and our borders should be completely secured. The rule of law must be maintained.

Here’s the bottom line. Even if Cruz wins his filibuster and manages, by some miracle, to get King, Coburn, McCain, Graham, et al, to stand fast with him to get to 41 and prevent cloture, Reid will send that House CR back to the House.

Back to Boehner and Cantor’s leadership, with a scant eight days to avoid a government shutdown, which the majority of the nation would lay at the feet of the Republican party according to polls. Cruz has said expects Boehner and Cantor to ‘hold the line’ on defunding Obamacare, forcing a government shutdown, which, ironically, everyone already knows will NOT stop the implementation of Obamacare and the Obamacare Exchanges will still move forward unabated.

Do we really believe that Boehner and Cantor will stand firm? It is far more likely that Boehner, Cantor, and others in the House will move to strip out the defunding language and offer a CR with an Obamacare DELAY in its place.

This will garner the swiftly votes necessary to pass the senate and be signed by Obama in a blur. Why? Because Obamacare is a trainwreck. The Exchanges are NOT set up and ready to roll, the federal site where the agents/brokers need to calculate the rate for individuals for insurance frequently fails, even to allow them to log in, and when they do, they admit that they are getting erroneous rates. The system is broken to the point of being worse than non-functional.

If Obamacare is allowed to roll out on schedule, it will be a disaster for Democrats. The system is erratic, bug ridden, and assigning rates that are wrong. The Democrats desperately need some 2.75 Million young people ( who don’t need health care insurance since before Obamacare anyone who was admitted to a hospital emergency room received necessary treatment, thus any injury or catastrophic illness was always treated in any event) to sign up for Obamacare and pay for healthcare insurance in order to fund Obamacare. According to Obamacare, these same young people can choose not to sign up for Obamacare and pay a fine, of less than $100. Financially, it is in the best economic interest of young people not to sign up for Obamacare, which would see them paying premiums for full coverage healthcare insurance and simply pay the fine.

ANY DELAY IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF OBAMACARE IS WELCOME TO THE DEMOCRATS so that these problems in the implementation can be worked out before the average American becomes aware of exactly how bad this system and the resultant system really are through hands on subjection to that system. Further, delay also keeps young people from finding out exactly how much they will have to pay in premiums, which will only escalate over time, for the rest of their lives ahead of the midterm elections.

This is the calculation, and collusion, of the political class. The GOP uses this issue as a stick to get the base to the polls to try and win the senate, just as the base handed them a landslide victory in the House of Representatives in 2010. Ask yourself why the House has waited until NOW to try to defund Obamacare… when they could have done this in 2011, and 2012. The Democrats area faced with the public finally getting a taste of Obamacare and the byzantine leviathan of bureaucracy it has created as well as the impact of the cost of this 10,500 plus pages of cobbled together legislation. The Democrats know that this is election year poison. They need a delay in the implementation of those exchanges in order to fix the system… at least until AFTER the 2014 elections.

As far as Ted Cruz is concerned, he was John Boehner’s attorney when Boehner brought suit against Jim McDermott in 1998. Their relationship is an old one. Cruz’s wife is the investment adviser for the Southwest Division of Goldman-Sachs. Cruz attended BOTH Harvard and Princeton and during his time at Harvard ( how many average Americans do you know personally who attended either one… let alone BOTH of these Ivy League progressive institutions) was an editor of the Harvard Law Review…and he was the founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review. Why did they need a ‘Harvard Latino Law Review’ when the Harvard Law Revue served so well for so long? The mandate of the Harvard Latino Law Review is the scholarly discussion of legal issues affecting Hispanics in the United States. Funny, I’d thought that Americans of Hispanic decent were Americans… equal under the law.

Cruz has chosen Obamacare as an issue to create an image with the conservative base because he witnessed Marco Rubio ruin himself and his prospects with the base over immigration reform. Cruz could easily have led the fight against the Gang of Eight bill and won that fight. Instead, he’s chosen Obamacare defunding, which he knows he can’t win, at best Boehner and Cantor will pass a DELAY. But Cruz doesn’t need to win. He merely needs to create the image that he’s fighting for the American people.

Ironically, on immigration, Cruz largely agrees with the end result of Rubio’s immigration position. He would like to see the illegal aliens granted legal status, issued green cards, but denied citizenship. He has recanted his demand for proven enforcement of border security, and now only demands that legislation mandating border security be passed. We’ve already had legislation mandating border security passed in 2009. It went unenforced and unimplemented. Do we really think that Obama is going to order the enforcement of border security now? Particularly when his base will be pushing for citizenship for the newly legal illegal aliens, a newly created permanent underclass in the United States, and hanging that around the necks of the GOP? How long before they would be granted citizenship? Not to mention that there are already numerous paths to citizenship for those with a green card, and pro-amnesty groups are already working to get those restrictions and requirements lifted and relaxed.

The major DONORS… big business… for both parties… want AMNESTY.. and a porous border in order to ensure a continuing supply of cheap labor. Both parties will do whatever they can to service the desires of those donors. If AMNESTY isn’t passed, they still win…as things will remain exactly as they are… with a porous border and a population of illegal aliens at large in the United States who currently hold an estimated 8 million full time jobs, according to the PEW Center, and untold numbers of part time jobs.

The wealthiest Americans, those who ARE those political donors, now account for over 50% of all earnings (take home) in this nation. They’ve surpassed the rate in 1929… just before the economic disaster known as THE GREAT DEPRESSION.

Don’t forget about the push for AMNESTY. Once those illegal aliens… 12-30 million of them… have that green card… even without citizenship… they will be eligible for Obamacare, too. The CBO estimates the impact on the healthcare budget to be about an additional $2 Trillion over the first ten years.

Obamacare and AMNESTY, of any description, taken together is a poison pill for the American economy and tax payer.

That bill is now before the Senate, where Democrats that control the chamber vow to remove the provision to defund Obamacare this week and return the measure to the House to sign off on it. It would then by up to House Speaker John Boehner and his Republicans to decide what to do – with time running short.

House Republicans could approve the Senate-passed bill, clearing the way for Obama to sign it into law, or reject it, triggering a shutdown.

ATTACHING NEW CONDITIONS

Another option in the House would be for Republicans to attach new conditions to the bill, such as a possible delay in implementation of Obamacare, and send it back to the Senate for its concurrence.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Cruz conceded that he does not know if he will have the 41 votes needed in the 100-member Senate to sustain such a roadblock. But he said it’s now time for the Senate’s 46 Republicans “to unify, to stand together with House Republicans” and against Obamacare.

Republicans need at least 41 votes in the Senate to sustain a procedural hurdle known as a filibuster against the bill.

“Look, this (bill) may end up going back to the House,” Cruz said. “I hope and fully believe that the House will continue the fight.”

Republican Representative Tom Graves of Georgia said members of his party are “united around a very simple goal, and that is keeping the government open while protecting our constituents from the harmful effects of Obamacare.”

“We’re going to do everything we can to protect our constituents, and we have eight days to do that,” Graves told ABC’s “This Week” program.

A vote for a DELAY is a vote for Obamacare. It’s also a vote for the political class, both sides of the aisle, to continue to have a stick in their arsenal to beat the American electorate with and get them to the polls.

REPEAL is the only way to end the economic and healthcare nightmare that is the bill known as The Affordable Care Act.

He didn’t lose. Instead, Americans who showed up to vote (and many did not) gave him a pass for a host of reasons, none of which had to do with his experience, his handling of issues or crises, or even his governing style.

Obama won his second term simply because the media convinced 52% of America that Romney was a rich evil old white guy who hated them.

Johnnyreb on September 22, 2013 at 3:17 PM

That and the fear abortion would become instantly illegal under Romney. I heard many woman say that even though they couldn’t / wouldn’t explain how.

rottenrobbie on September 22, 2013 at 3:31 PM

Am I just missing something or am I attributing too much to the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups role in turnout of the conservative vote? I just don’t see anywhere that these pundits are willing to make that connection however superficial they may think it was.

Democrats polled and knew what voters wanted in the 2006 elections. Democrats made a ton of promises in their “New Direction for America” that they had absolutely no intention of keeping.

Republicans should be referencing that document and pointing out how the Democrats’ actions since January 3, 2007 have been the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they promised in order to win the elections in 2006.

As just one example, they criticized the size of deficits under President Bush, and promised “no more deficit spending”.

What the incoming Democrats inherited from the outgoing Republicans was the FY 2007 budget with a deficit UNDER $161 Billion. Since the end of FY 2007, Democrats have added over $8 TRILLION (over $8,000 Billion) in new debt.

If the Republicans don’t broadcast that far and wide, then they truly are “the stupid party”.

Democrats promised “no more deficit spending”, inherited an annual deficit of under $161 Billion, and in just 6 short years Democrats added well over $8,000 Billion in new debt.

Democrats promised fiscal discipline.
Democrats promised fiscal civility.
Democrats made a lot of promises that they had no intention of keeping.

I agree. We must remember that the political class is just a small part of the ruling class and we are nothing but their subjects. This is so evidenced by their passing ObamaCare into law and then their exempting of themselves from it.

It is possible that everyone misread the results of the 2012 presidential election. Or, perhaps, over-read them.

As tedious as this last year has been, it’s even more irritating to watch the delusions fade away in columns like this. It’s incredible that with every poll taken before, during, and after the election cycle, coupled with political history, there could be any question that 2012 marked the start of another Democrat winning streak *when they didn’t win with O at the top of the ticket.*

This country is very likely to exit off the cliff stage left, but it will be in fits and starts. The dream of the “liberal Reagan” died in some meeting room somewhere before he even took office.

Any rational person understood on election night what Obama’s “mandate” was, why he was winning, and what the American people had decided (i.e. nothing). If you really needed a hint, the fact that the House of Representatives was called before the one-sided Electoral College beating should have given it to you.

Am I just missing something or am I attributing too much to the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups role in turnout of the conservative vote? I just don’t see anywhere that these pundits are willing to make that connection however superficial they may think it was.

Deinsi56 on September 22, 2013 at 4:08 PM

Neither party is at all upset about that. The Democrats are fine with it because it helps them win and beat conservatives. The Republicans are fine with it because it means defeat for conservatives, whom they regard as their real, main enemy, even while soliciting votes from them.

When liberal Republicans win over conservatives, the establishment demands loyalty and calls for conservatives to act “grown up”. When conservatives win, the establishment does all it can to help them lose; no “loyalty” or “acting grown-up” for them. It’s all about beating their real, main enemy, conservatives; winning in the general is desirable but a secondary issue.

In addition, on policy, the Republican base is 90% white and mostly male and heavily working class, but Republicans in power are all for mass immigration, forced integration and affirmative action, a mix of policies that makes it hard for working class whites to get jobs and find an affordable, decent place to raise a family, where the neighborhood won’t become culturally alien and dangerous for your kids and the value of your home can be trusted not to collapse when the government bring the forced integration. In the long run, if these policies are not changed, there won’t be any white conservative base. When push comes to shove, on issues like affirmative action, not only does the party not support its base, it won’t even help its base get equal treatment under law, in jobs and in education and housing.

So, it’s valid to talk about the IRS attack on the Tea Party and point out that government, including the IRS, now a partisan machine, likely influencing elections, but to talk realistically about that and why it can be like that without Republican push-back, you have to talk about the GOP betrayal of its base.

And the leftist mass media doesn’t want to talk about that. Their preferred narrative is that Republicans are evil extreme right-wingers, and not that the Republican Party is an extension of their own party. Which is what it is.

Which was the only reason that I voted for him. What I came to recognize as just one promise in a long list of empty promises made by GOP pols pretending to prefer limited government.

besser tot als rot on September 22, 2013 at 2:28 PM

What amazed me was that with Bush enjoying Republican domination in people elected or appointed in every branch of government, people were saying that it was up to conservative voters, who had worked their guts out for Bush, to deliver much bigger majorities to the party if they wanted to see any action. People like Hugh Hewitt were agreeing with that.

Firstly, you can’t deliver a remarkable, above-average result, and then do it again and again, every time. You need to be like the Democrats, where they bring in left-wingers and they get left-wing results. Otherwise you never see results.

Second, how do activists stay motivated or how do they have a case to present to other people that we have to do better for the Republican Party next time? When the party is already in power all over, and doing nothing about issue it could easily act on if it wanted – judges, border enforcement, anything, just so there was a reason to believe. But the party wasn’t interested. The barrier was not lack of Congressman, lack of Senators, the White House or not enough Republican-appointed judges. It was lack of any desire by the establishment Republican Party to act on its alleged beliefs.

The Republican Party does not intend to favor its conservative base on policy, ever. You can’t give them enough that they will ever want to move.

So, it’s valid to talk about the IRS attack on the Tea Party and point out that government, including the IRS, now a partisan machine, likely influencing elections, but to talk realistically about that and why it can be like that without Republican push-back, you have to talk about the GOP betrayal of its base.David Blue on September 22, 2013 at 7:04 PM

Well, yes. Which is why I’ve come to view my ‘extremely’ conservative Republican representatives with as nearly as much disdain as I do Democrat office holders, and the poor fellow that calls from the RNC asking for donations ends up with an ear full instead of a donation. But what baffles me a bit is that I haven’t noticed anything written or talked about anywhere by any of the ‘conservative’ pundits that make this connection (like this particular post for example). When voter ID is discussed it is always connected to ‘voter suppression’… by everybody. Even those that don’t view it that way. When actual voter suppression is instigated and carried out by the federal government on a nationwide scale, not a peep. Not even a hint that it even may have had anything to do with the outcome of the elections. It’s always ‘the Republicans lost because of x, y, and/or z’ and what the IRS did (and likely other three letter departments) had absolutely no influence at all and is in no way connected to the results. It’s possible I may have missed it, but I’d like to think it not likely I did.

I have come to the conclusion that America is now ruled by an elite ruling class. They have a lock and stranglehold on the government in all aspects. The rest of us outside of the beltway are just their working stiffs so they can continue to enrich themselves and their friends, at our expense.

Exempting themselves from Obamacare, so shamelessly, was the last straw for me.

I am so over this. Nothing will change no matter who wins what in 2014 and 2016. We are not longer “We the People”.